Gamescom 2019 Q&A (rough transcript)

[Benjo]

For those who have yet to read Tales from the Calamity, Tales from the Dragonsong War and Tales from the Storm.

[Nemmar]

It was all story questions... i thought there were going to be 5.1 announcements at gamescom...

[Benjo]

It was all story questions... i thought there were going to be 4.1 announcements at gamescom...

I think because Oda's main role is story related:

We’re pleased to announce that our Producer & Director Naoki Yoshida and the Main Scenario Writer and Game World Creator Banri Oda will host a special Q&A session at gamescom 2019!

Please post your questions about Shadowbringers and the world of FFXIV here.

[Sathona]

Im surprised people expected job info on a Lore Q&A session,considering on the last Q&A he said lore questions would be answered at GC

[Lilseph]

I really want to dive in deeper into the Ascians' past, specially Lahabrea who died without having the development he deserved imo. They did mention recently that soon we'll see the other side of the story though and I can't wait to witness how the rest of the MSQ unfolds.

[Benjo]

Im surprised people expected job info on a Lore Q&A session,considering on the last Q&A he said lore questions would be answered at GC

Yes, indeed. Let's see what Tokio Games Show will have in store for us.

[Alleluia]

B. I MUST DIVE INTO STORMBLOOD FOR THESE HINTS

Bet they were talking about the Mol Khan and her visions/foresight kind of thing she talks about with us. Her dialogue does change between the Stormblood main scenario and the Stormblood patches to kind of hint at what's coming with Shadowbringers for us. Now I'll have to go check to see if she's changed her dialogue again post-ShB, now that I think about it.

Thanks so much for posting this translation, Benjo!

[Benjo]

You're welcome. Going to work on some parts here and there to make things more clear after some hours of sleep.

[Hatstand]

Healers? What're those? Anyways thank you for posting these!

Healer questions were never going to get answered, but the point of posting a few healer questions and upvoting them through the roof was to demonstrate that there are still healers who have questions they’d very much like to know the answers to. We achieved that, with the top 4 most upvoted questions being about healers, and the top healer question having more than twice as many upvotes as the top non-healer question. Hopefully next time they are answering questions about jobs they will finally answer some healer concerns.

Thanks for the transcript.

[polyphonica]

Bet they were talking about the Mol Khan and her visions/foresight kind of thing she talks about with us. Her dialogue does change between the Stormblood main scenario and the Stormblood patches to kind of hint at what's coming with Shadowbringers for us. Now I'll have to go check to see if she's changed her dialogue again post-ShB, now that I think about it.

Another hint in Stormblood is the lore of the Dotharl -- there's a big scene where Gosetsu insults their religious belief and finds it unfathomable that their newborns would inherit the spirits of those who passed away. Well, as it turns out...

The wider Xaela belief in Azim and Nhamaa is also a strong allusion to Zodiark and Hydaelyn; as Oda suggested in the answer about the names past down from the First Astral Era, most likely these beliefs were also formed based on vague memories of what happened in Amaurot, so it's not literally one-to-one (the people from the First Astral Era couldn't remember the fine details due to the sundering, plus it's been passed down through countless generations now), but some key concepts probably carried over from those memories.

Other stuff going on with the echo and Zenos were hints of a sort too (and experiments like the Resonatorium), but it sort of continues our understanding of what the echo is that has been a plot thread all along.

Of course, as they pointed out, some of it is less "hints" but a strong effort by the writers to tie future developments back to past reveals and make sure everything had continuity. So it isn't necessarily like they purposefully left us all these hints/allusions/suggestions because they intentionally knew what was going to happen later, but when they wrote whatever happened later they made sure it connected back to all the hints that came before. As Yoshida suggested, doing that seamlessly is a sign of a skilled writer.